Potyviruses are geographically widespread and infect numerous crops causing diseases that threaten food security. They reduce gross yields and, by lowering product quality, marketable yields. We want to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying potyviral replication, viral defense against RNA silencing, translation and encapsidation and study these questions with potato virus (PVA) in the host plant Nicotiana benthamiana.
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Plant potyviruses are a group of viruses that cause major crop losses. Infection is carried out by 11 viral proteins and many host plant proteins. The protein complexes formed by viral and host proteins allow viral RNA to be replicated, protected, and used for viral protein production. These interactions also shape the cell environment to support viral actions, and direct viral RNA into replication complexes, surrounding cells and viral particles. Some host proteins are susceptibility factors, without which viral infection is inhibited. In this project funded by the Research Council of Finland we use advanced technologies to gather protein interaction data and to reveal the location of those interactions in the cell. The results are expected to contribute to resistance breeding.